Video: GOP rep says ObamaCare bill tells seniors to “drop dead”
posted at 5:12 pm on July 22, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly
Greg Hengler says that this video shows that Republicans are learning to play the game on health care, but that might actually deny all the credit due to Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL). The attack on Medicare Advantage shows the animus Democrats have for insurers, even those who partner with government to help seniors and the disabled gain affordable access to medical care:
I have first-hand experience with Medicare Advantage; the First Mate uses it to make her Medicare coverage workable. To enter the plan, she needs to spend a large percentage of her Social Security disability check each month for the premiums. In return, the MA plan extends coverage on prescriptions and services, and most crucially, works the Medicare payment issues between the government and the providers. Without MA, we would be deep in the hole for her ongoing treatment relating to her kidney transplant and her disabilities, and we consider the premium money well spent.
Medicare Advantage exists as a successful model of government and private insurers working together to deliver better medical care through private-market options. This is, of course, the reason Democrats have to stop it. They need to kill any evidence that insurers can be responsible partners in health care, and they also need the money to make ObamaCare look less expensive. In return, millions of Medicare recipients will have to fall back on the poor coverage of Medicare by itself and deal directly with providers angered over not getting payments.
Make no mistake: an attack on Medicare Advantage is an attack on seniors and the disabled, and a sharp reduction in coverage and care for them. That’s not just hardball — it’s the truth.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2
TTheo:
Blather? That is what we are getting from Obama and the Democrats. They can not even keep their stories straight, they can not answer simple questions about their plans, they can not all come up with the same numbers or the same game plan, whatever. If there is real fear about this plan it has a lot to do with Obama’s real failure to communicate to the American people just what he is doing here.
Do not blame the rest of us for his failures. If this plan was as wonderful and simple and straightforward as Obama and his minions say it is, people would not be getting more and more concerned about it.
Terrye on July 22, 2009 at 5:57 PM
Quit hitting on me, I’m straight.
Bishop on July 22, 2009 at 5:57 PM
Redistribution of life
faraway on July 22, 2009 at 5:57 PM
True, except I think Obama’s goal is for the illegal aliens to be citizens.
txmomof6 on July 22, 2009 at 5:58 PM
With the ObamaCare plan, the only industry to see any real growth will be the Funeral Industry.
Wait…don’t cemeteries need lawn care? Hey more jobs Americans won’t do.
Mortician degrees will be the new career to get into kids.
It’s the way of the future.
portlandon on July 22, 2009 at 5:58 PM
Id argue that shift says more about the effectiveness of advertising than anything else. I mean, it works, thats why they spend so much money on it. Its also misleading, but i suppose thats besides the point for many.
ernesto on July 22, 2009 at 5:59 PM
Latest from NRO Corner.
Wethal on July 22, 2009 at 6:00 PM
ernesto:
Conspiratorial melodrama my behind. If a few months ago someone had said that Obama was going to use the recession to back a 800 billion dollar stimulus plan that stimulated nothing but his favorite constituencies, I am sure someone would have said that was conspiratorial melodrama.
I think that if this thing passes, it will only be a matter of time before health care suffers and the budget is overwhelmed with the demands of yet another entitlement program.
Terrye on July 22, 2009 at 6:00 PM
It’s not that we want to punish your vitality, we just want to spread it around. /Ogabe
Fallen Sparrow on July 22, 2009 at 6:00 PM
Its called sunlight is the best disinfectant.
txmomof6 on July 22, 2009 at 6:01 PM
ernesto:
No, the problem is that this not a simple plan, it is a conglomeration of plans that not even its supporters can describe. Will it fund abortions? Will it drive out private insurers? Will it require rationing? These are not hard questions and it is up to the people pushing the plan to answer them, not the rest of us.
Terrye on July 22, 2009 at 6:02 PM
Come on now, you don’t think our economy can handle the 25 trillion dollar hit which will occur after the 10 year window?
Bishop on July 22, 2009 at 6:03 PM
So…are you saying that us “drones” are too stupid to think for ourselves. Im in my forties, I ignore commercials. Yet I think this plan is a bad idea. It’s been my experience that only young people that are affected by advertising.
FlyoverJ-HawkFan on July 22, 2009 at 6:04 PM
Bishop:
I don’t think our economy can handle 3 more years of Obama. Not at this rate.
Terrye on July 22, 2009 at 6:05 PM
And i’ll agree he’s trying to do too much too fast and more deliberation on just about all of that (just drop that rationing red herring), but matching Obama’s ambition with “OBAMAS TELLING OLD PEOPLE TO DROP DEAD!” isnt exactly an intellectually honest strategy. maybe thats irrelevent if you think you’re trying to save the nation…but its a bit much to me.
ernesto on July 22, 2009 at 6:05 PM
FlyoverJ-HawkFan on July 22, 2009 at 6:06 PM
If that were the case no one would pay to advertise much of anything. The market is always right, no? Well the market seems to price advertising in a way that suggest it works VERY well, on huge swaths of every age group.
ernesto on July 22, 2009 at 6:06 PM
Obamacare: “creating more dead Americans per year than an Al Qaeda nuclear attack per year”
elduende on July 22, 2009 at 6:07 PM
ernesto:
If you worked in health care like I do you might feel differently. I work for a health care agency that specializes in providing care for the elderly and disabled. And I think that Drop Dead pretty much covers the attitude of a lot of Obama’s people toward the pesky elderly.
Terrye on July 22, 2009 at 6:08 PM
Nah. Doesn’t work for me. Maybe I’m unusual. I think for myself and check what experts think before I agree or purchase. I’m my own man I guess. Not a sheep.
FlyoverJ-HawkFan on July 22, 2009 at 6:09 PM
Not if you’re an old person.
faraway on July 22, 2009 at 6:11 PM
ObamaCare:
Getting you SHOVEL READY BEFORE YOUR TIME.
petefrt on July 22, 2009 at 6:12 PM
Congratulations then. Its still silly to act as if advertising isnt effective and doesnt actually sway opinion…especially if your only evidence is your personal experience.
But you don’t feel that the attitude pervades the health insurance industry?
ernesto on July 22, 2009 at 6:12 PM
Obamacare: Make it mandatory for all government employees from the president on down. Enroll your wife and kids in this system, Mr. President.
Claypigeon on July 22, 2009 at 6:13 PM
Yeah well, I’ve watched probably a million Pepsi commercials and still think it sucks. To me Coke is the best, and I didn’t need a commercial to think that. Also, before the govt. takeover of GM, I was and have always been a Pontiac man. YOu have to understand, advertising works when you are trying to convince the consumer that one product is better than the other competing product. I choose to look at my choices then decide on my terms. NOW, I will admit that advertising does work for Hollywood. Commercial trailers do make an impact. I will give you that.
FlyoverJ-HawkFan on July 22, 2009 at 6:18 PM
Obamacare:
Just returning the carbon from the place it came from…
ted c on July 22, 2009 at 6:18 PM
And yet you’re here pretty often.
venividivici on July 22, 2009 at 6:18 PM
LMAO, how terribly true! Keep em coming ted c, I like your sense of humor!
Liberty or Death on July 22, 2009 at 6:19 PM
Ive always preferred it here among people who almost always disagree with me. Its more fun that way, and HA is genuinely good at breaking stories.
ernesto on July 22, 2009 at 6:19 PM
You know I’ve made just that same argument about the soda countless times. You figure out if you’re a coke or pepsi man fairly early on in your life, and thats that. But as much as i like to think individually we can fight it…im always bombarded by the sheer numbers. Advertising is such big business, it HAS to work :-)
ernesto on July 22, 2009 at 6:21 PM
For some reason, I have defended Ernesto at times. I think that he is just young and idealistic. But since he is here, I have hope that with age he will see the light. Most normal people do.
FlyoverJ-HawkFan on July 22, 2009 at 6:21 PM
AARP is the National Organization of Women for old people. Leftism first, interests of actual constituents, second or not at all.
Cicero43 on July 22, 2009 at 6:23 PM
That’s my girl! First politician I’ve been happy I voted for since President Bush.
Dr. ZhivBlago on July 22, 2009 at 6:23 PM
I have marshalled the power of my 76 year old mother’s email address book. She is really fired up over the fact that the AARP refuses to advocate for her and other members because they stand to make millions and millions in insurance contracts. This news about Medicare Advantage has sent her back to the keyboard. Her 600+ email friends are getting another email prompt to contact their senators and congressmen just….about…….NOW!
Obama might have won the election based on his techno-savy. But he will lose this fight because of ours…
LEBA on July 22, 2009 at 6:24 PM
Never underestimate the collective power of millions of pis**d off seniors!
LEBA on July 22, 2009 at 6:26 PM
My fiancee just turned 50 and gets this propaganda crap from AARP. I tell her to file 9 that crap immediately. Fortunately for me she agrees.
FlyoverJ-HawkFan on July 22, 2009 at 6:30 PM
Zero Hedge: “Anything that starts with ‘We are now in the early stages of a depression‘ is a must read.”
Thanks, Democrats! We could have had a recession but, once again, you and your Keynesian true believers turned a recession into a Great Depression.
Rae on July 22, 2009 at 6:35 PM
Wrong thread!
Rae on July 22, 2009 at 6:36 PM
Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL)
tonight’s Worst person in the World
/Olby
agmartin on July 22, 2009 at 6:38 PM
But I rarely see you actually take on the substance of the disagreement, since you seem to prefer addressing some of the more “rhetorically flamboyant” posters.
For example, can you explain to me why it is at all the concern of the Federal government (other than that they’ve made it their concern) how much people pay for healthcare purchased in the private markets? Why does it matter that healthcare costs are rising faster than GDP? I read a recent editorial in the Washington Post that suggested rising health care costs as a percentage of GDP was actually a good thing. If you think about it, it makes sense because in most other goods/services, we see relatively benign levels of inflation or slight deflation, but in medical care, because so much of it is so innovative, we see temporary monopoly pricing for the period of time when a new product/service comes onto the market and becomes the de facto standard of care.
Or to take the point about “control”, which you dismiss as “conspiratorial melodrama”, do you disagree that putting people into a public option health insurance plan will give bureaucrats more control over people’s lives? Are you so certain that control would be more benign than what we see in the private insurance markets, where there is a well-established path of escalation of appeals to the decisions insurance companies make? Forget abortion in ObamaCare, I want to know if you can sue to government if they deny you treatment and what’s the timeframe for a decision. I know I can sue a private insurer or I can even appeal to my employer to switch providers (employers would rather keep their employees happy than their group insurance provider). The possibility that these features of the private market will go away with a public option should not be dismissed lightly.
I think these are fundamental questions and, as someone said, it is up to supporters of ObamaCare to answer them.
venividivici on July 22, 2009 at 6:47 PM
LOL: My wife and I are in our 50’s, get their envelopes all the time. Put in the burn barrel. The CO2 in a Godsend for all my trees.
chemman on July 22, 2009 at 7:05 PM
.
.
Florida – now with millions of shovel-ready projects!
Reducing our carbon footprint…one shovel-full at a time.
dont taze me bro on July 22, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Yes indeed a real shot in the arm for Obama’s economy. Look for a boom in the funeral business and the rapid establishment and expansion of nationwide “Soylent Green” factories. What a great leader . . . who could ask for anything more?
rplat on July 22, 2009 at 7:43 PM
My wife and I have both been on a Medicare Advantage PPO since we turned 65 a few years ago, and it would be a tragedy for the government to destroy the program. Unlike Mrs. Morrissey, we’re on Social Security, not disability, so our premiums are the same as Medicare Part B (about $90/month). We see the same doctors and other providers as before the plan, but have slightly lower copays. Prescriptions are covered, as are annual eye exams, which weren’t under our pre-retirement plan. I think the plan is a win-win-win-win. We get the same health care and pay a little less, Anthem (the Virginia Blue Cross organization) presumably makes a profit, the providers get their negotiated PPO fees and can exercise their professional judgment free of interference, and the feds pay the plan 95% of the premium they charge us, having the other 5% to use for other things. No wonder that’s what the Obummer administration wants to scuttle.
bgoldman on July 22, 2009 at 7:54 PM
Grandpa & Grandma: Shovel Ready!
Jeff from WI on July 22, 2009 at 8:52 PM
Do Grandpa & Grandma STILL say: “FDR and those Democrats are for the little guy”? Grandpa & Grandma,the Democrats WANT YOU TO DIE!
Jeff from WI on July 22, 2009 at 8:55 PM
This health plan really the Democrat plan to take care of underfunded Social Security & Medicare.
You don’t pay for the DEAD.
Jeff from WI on July 22, 2009 at 8:56 PM
I watched this on c-span, on Tuesday. Up til I had to go to a meeting. I saw this, and I think she said it all with that statement. We’re all headed toward this type of treatment, if this scam passes. If we’re not headed there sooner, since, none of this is really about quality health care for everyone.
If it’s so easy for Michelle to create a program, that disses people of the African American community, she will have no qualms about the same being done to millions more, around the country.
Oh, and Hoyer scolding Pence for voting against a bill, when Pence wasn’t even part of Congress in the 90’s is a hoot, when Pence calls him on it, in a calm, rational, and adult manner!!
capejasmine on July 23, 2009 at 5:02 PM
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2